A pixel is worth a thousand words

From a business perspective, pixel tracking may be the biggest thing to happen to Facebook since it launched. To help you catch up with the conversation, we’ve crafted an easy-to-follow primer that covers everything you need to know to become a pixel tracking expert.

Available to all Business Manager users in Facebook, a Facebook pixel is a small segment of code designed to collect data on your website and its users. The unique tracking code monitors your entire website to report conversions, build audiences and get rich insights about how people use your website. Not only does this provide valuable data that can drive your digital strategy, but it also gets you one step closer to tying ROI to your social media efforts.

In addition to delivering insight about how people use your website, pixel tracking also groups your website user data together to create a Custom Audience. This rich data can single-handedly enhance the effectiveness of campaigns by showing you patterns in your customers’ behaviors you wouldn’t otherwise notice. You can use these Custom Audiences to re-engage users with targeted ads, or you can let Facebook find new users that are like the Custom Audience through a “Lookalike Campaign.”

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Pixel Perfect

Facebook simplifies the pixel creation process with the following steps:

  1. Go to your Facebook Pixel tab in Ads Manager.
  2. Click “Create a Pixel.”
  3. Enter a name for your pixel. You can have only one pixel per ad account, so choose a name that represents your business.
  4. Check the box to accept the terms.
  5. Click Create Pixel.

After you have created a pixel in Facebook, you’ll need to decide what events or actions you want to track on your website. In order to do this, you need to understand the two main elements of pixel tracking code: a pixel base code and event code(s).

  • The pixel base code should be installed on every page of your website and provides a baseline for measuring specific events. This code does not change even if your event codes do.
  • Event codes allow you to track actions on your website, either as a result of Facebook ads (paid) or organic reach (unpaid).

Choose Your Own Adventure

Based on your objectives, the specific conversion event code will only need to be applied to the landing page where the conversion will take place. For example, if you wanted to track when someone added an item to their cart on your ecommerce website, you would insert an “Add to Cart” event code on the checkout page. An event code will be triggered when the conversion action occurs, and that information is sent directly into the Pixel Tracking page of your Facebook Business Manager ad account.
Here are some standard event codes that Facebook has provided for tracking specific conversions:

Pixel Tracking standard event codes

Once you have identified which event you want to track and the pixel tracking code and event code has been added to the backend of your website, it’s time to launch your first pixel tracking campaign. Don’t forget to activate your pixel tracking code when you launch supporting Facebook ads for best results. Happy tracking!

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